I'm weary of the battle. But a tired fighter can still be a fighter.

It would be the death of all creativity for me if I had to sit there and be concerned with the sensibilities of a fourteen-year-old kid. Some fourteen-year-olds would revel in the book, and some would be very sensitive to it, so you can't afford to worry about that. What I worry about is good taste and getting my message across by whatever means I can.

He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.

That's what Archie did - built a house nobody could anticipate a need for, except himself, a house that was invisible to everyone else.

I write very tightly, and my big fear is boring people. I want them to read quickly, stopped in their tracks. I resist indulging myself.

...pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea.